Posts by Joshua

I was thinking on these things again today, after recalling to mind the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan by the Taliban in 2001.

Monumentation has become an important word in my new line of work. Just yesterday, in the sprawling pine woods north of Choctawhatchee Bay, our survey party came upon a concrete post 4 feet high and 4 inches square, circled all round with greenery; an enduring emblem of proprietorship set down a century ago by the paper company that owned this forest.

The shell-middens of the Muscogee Creek Indians are much older still—and still in evidence all along these waters. More recently than the Indians, the settlers have left their own evidence: Hurdy pots (used for collecting turpentine), tumbledown fences, logging roads from nowhere to nowhere; by these and other devices they have left their mark.

There are some among the older surveyors who can detect a section line by the way the trees grow. By such scant evidence they can sniff out a section corner. And how much greater is the evidence for the goodness of pleasure! It must occur to all—it is self-evident. Let the priests of fable shout until they are hoarse; it will not stop all sensible folk from coming to their senses. There, then, is our chance and hope: that the school of Epicurus will never be forsaken, so long as there are men and women who are prepared to come to their senses.

And I will be curious to know whether, as I presume, you are a Tolkien fan?

Happy 20th.

Over the last days and weeks, I have been hearing the most remarkable oracles from my acquaintances and relations. If God wants you to die from a virus, he'll make it happen. And also; If you trust God and do not fear this, He will save you. I have been told earnestly that the projected official figure (65 million) is just an homage to Satan—by way of "rounding up" 65 to 66.

I have heard them clamour for the churches to remain open, because Jesus is the only true medicine.

What a joy it is put all that nonsense by: to cleave to what we know, and to confess just as readily to what we do not know.

Peace and safety, friends.

I don't have time to read that all just now, but one 'problem' often cited by Medievalists against Greenblatt (A Renaissance scholar) was his 'misunderstanding' of Medieval literacy and scholarship. I read one of these arguments saying, in effect, that books were "valued almost to the point of being magical" in the Middle Ages. The person was citing this as an example of literacy.

I'm sorry, but that is not an example of literacy. It's an example of ILLITERACY!!!

Books are useful, and interesting, and worth treasuring; but there's nothing talismanic about them. Only someone who couldn't read would think that there was.

So I just don't have much time for disgruntled Medievalists.

That's excellent. I'm personally convinced that Stephen Greenblatt has a more insightful interpretation of Lucretius than most of his academic colleagues—a view which is further cemented in everything I read from him. And I can say that in my own case there could not have been a more effective recruitment tool than The Swerve.

Your chart calls to mind a project that I'd like to see done, Eugenios. What I wanted to do was make a timeline of Epicurean influence similar to this chart from the Marvel Cinematic Universe;

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/3d/5…fe9e0cf4523.jpg

In my vision, the color lines would coordinate to different levels of agreement. There would be a golden line linking true 'canon' figures, and other colors radiating off of them to other prominent figures. We might start with purple, for example, to represent physics; red to represent the pleasure-principle; green to represent non-theism; black to represent antagonism; and so on.

So we would start with a circle to the far left with a portrait (where possible) and name of, say, Democritus. A dotted purple line representing influence but not total agreement would surround Democritus and Leucippus and lead to Epicurus. Epicurus would be a larger circle with gold in the first ring and the other colors working toward the outside. This line would then connect all of the scholarchs; Philodemus; Diogenes of Oenoanda; Lucretius; Francis Wright; DeWitt.

A separate line might then cut away, say from Lucretius' circle. A purple line running out toward Gassendi, indicating an agreement with physics. A dotted purple and red line toward Montaigne, indicating strong influence but not agreement. A purple, red, and green line running toward La Mettrie, indicating broad agreement to a greater or lesser degree with physics, pleasure, and non-theism. A line from Francis Wright to Thomas Jefferson indicating an agreement with physics and pleasure, but a dotted green line indicating his tendency toward Deism.

And so forth! No doubt problems would emerge as it was drafted, and disagreements would arise over canon figures. But a chart like this would allow one at a glance to take in the whole sweep of Epicurean history.

I'm certain I'll never get around to doing it, but if someone more gifted than myself with visual software had a mind I'd love to see the result!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dWNW-NXEudk

Scott is not (to my knowledge) an Epicurean, but this is still the best take on morality I've seen anywhere.

Ties in Euthypro and David Hume for one powerful conclusion; regardless of your faith or philosophy, the inescapable reality is that there are only rational 'oughts'.

Does an Epicurean have trouble making sense of ethics? Certainly: but only because everyone has trouble making sense of ethics. What did we expect from a mammalian brain operating in a universe made of unthinking matter—perfection? The really foolish thing would be to assume perfectibility in ethics. Europe was lighted from one end to another with the burning of heretics behind that insanity.

I like where your mind is, Eugenios, and can add an amateur poet's ear. I would even omit the English article;

All.

Or in Latin;

Omne.

The usage has an interesting precedence, in the worship of Odin or Woten: All-Father.

And as a prefix, even the second L is dropped;

Al-

-together

-mighty

-ways

"All things emerge into one, and a river runs through it." -Norman MacLean

One of my absurd little pastimes is to wrangle intellectually with the arguments put forward by the Flat-Earthers. Working now in land-surveying, the question is bound to emerge—and so it does.

When a control network (that is, a set of known control points) is laid out by a government Geodetic survey team, it is laid out with the precise mathematical understanding that the Earth is a spheroid. A later survey within the territory of this network will be conducted using plane coordinates; any given parcel is small enough so that convergence error from round to flat is negligible.

Enter the Flat-Earther; "if every parcel is laid out using plane coordinates, then a line of these parcels together prove that the Earth is flat."

Not so—because each parcel is tied in to two known local control points on the control network, the curvature is "baked in". It gets corrected every time you move to the next control point.

The Aesthetic Life—What Kierkegaard Gets Wrong

"In the bottomless ocean of pleasure, I have sounded in vain for a spot to cast an anchor. I have felt the almost irresistible power with which one pleasure drags another after it, the kind of adulterated enthusiasm which it is capable of producing, the boredom, the torment which follow."

-Søren Kierkegaard, Journal

The observation made by Kierkegaard in this passage is part of a broader argument; he believes that pleasure-seeking—in his terms, the "Aesthetic Life"—is doomed to failure. Pleasure is not sufficient, in his view, to satisfy mankind's total nature. For Kierkegaard, this meant a return to a philosophically-bolstered Christianity.

And so we must ask ourselves; where did he go wrong?

In my view, his main problem is a misunderstanding of terms. He thinks that he tested the pleasure-principle, and that he found where it failed. What he actually found, in my own view, was that the heedless pursuit of pleasure extrapolates dissatisfaction rather than mollifying it. How is that so?

It's simple: he failed to refer each pleasure back to his philosophical control network. This is the meaning of choice and avoidance; if he had remembered the Principle Doctrines, it might have prevented some mistakes!

That is all to the good, Eugenios! Another good practice, which I have occasionally employed; try to visualize the field of void and matter that stretches away from you in every direction as you stand, for example, in a quiet wood, or a crowded and busy intersection. See if it is not suggestive to you in a similar vein!

That is excellent, Eugenios. I should like to see you bring Vatican Saying 46 into your analysis; it seems (to an English reader) to support your conclusions!

It has been too long, Cassius!

The meditation on death has still a further use; that of overcoming lust or longing. The idea is to visualize the person to whom you are attached, and to "watch" them (in your mind) go through the various stages of sickness, aging, death, decay, and finally decomposition.

Whatever there may be gained by way of perspective in all of this, I can't see the pleasure in it—and I have an indistinct dislike for the morbidities involved. This was the version of death-meditation I employed myself.

Didn't work.

And upon reflection, I'm saddened to think I hoped for it.

It has been too long, Cassius!

The meditation on death has still a further use; that of overcoming lust or longing. The idea is to visualize the person to whom you are attached, and to "watch" them (in your mind) go through the various stages of sickness, aging, death, decay, and finally decomposition.

Whatever there may be gained by way of perspective in all of this, I can't see the pleasure in it—and I have an indistinct dislike for the morbidities involved. This was the version of death-meditation I employed myself.

Didn't work.

And upon reflection, I'm saddened to think I hoped for it.

The Buddhist reflects on death in order to escape the mortal world.

An Epicurean reflects on death in order to, in the words of W. H. Auden, "Find the mortal world enough."

Hello, all

It's been a time, but I still have an eye here—and a voice that I don't use enough!

Some may recall that I came to the Epicurean way through Buddhism. Indeed, I have used the Meditation on Death myself. Here's what I have to say;

To hear modern Buddhists speak of the Meditation on Death is generally to hear them mischaracterize it. I confess to not having listened to the linked podcast, Eugenios, but I want to clarify the point. What a Buddhist meditates on is precisely the death of the body. It's good so far as that goes—but before you get very far into it, you arrive at the problem.

The problem is that the deep, underlying structure of Buddhism precludes the possibility of genuine death. In fact, that's rather the whole point. They meditate on death in order to dismiss the claims of the body (which really does die) and focus all their earthly energy on the mind or spirit. How do I know this? Because; if Buddhists genuinely believed that death meant extinction, then death would encompass their definition of nibbana. And are we to believe that the shortest road thither is to kill one's self? Obviously not. And so we may discern that when the early buddhists spoke of rebirth, they meant it literally. The idea that rebirth is metaphorical, or poetic, or only by analogy, is a modern fiction.

What Thomas Jefferson said of the trinity is equally true of rebirth; An idea must be distinct before reason can act upon it, and no one ever had a distinct idea of rebirth, or of nirvana.

As an Epicurean, what do I think of all this?

First: that the claims of the body are not to be dismissed or denied, but are wholly justified, in and of themselves. I believe this because pleasure is the self-evident good.

Second: there is a sense of urgency in the shortness of human life, but it's source is altogether different from an Epicurean viewpoint. The Pali Canon teaches that nirvana is only possible in a human rebirth, and that a human rebirth is as rare as a sea turtle surfacing inside a golden ring in the middle of the ocean. A buddhist better get it right in this life or they'll surf through the six realms of existence waiting for another chance. The urgency for an Epicurean, by contrast, is that one will squander his only life in pain and suffering because he hasn't learned how to optimize for pleasure effectively.

Third: that there is certainly value in reflecting on death. Specifically; we should do as Epicurus instructed, and reflect on how Death is Nothing to us!

Well, I have to go back to work...it's an excellent topic though!

Josh

There's an interesting story about his library. After the British burned the Capitol in the War of 1812, Jefferson offered to sell his collection to the government as replacement, under one condition; they had to buy the WHOLE collection, and they had to keep them together.

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Jefferson's offer was met by warm support from many in the House and Senate; still, the bill introduced to authorize the purchase of Jefferson's library faced congressional opposition, particularly from the Federalists, such as Cyrus King, who argued that Jefferson's books would help disseminate his "infidel philosophy" and were "good, bad, and indifferent ... in languages which many can not read, and most ought not."

Source

Does anyone really think that Cicero and Seneca were the kinds of books Cyrus King was worried about?

Happy (now belated) birthday, Elayne!

Jefferson's reading is an interesting place to start, but the library of a voracious reader may be misleading. Nevertheless, the fact that he owned five different editions of Lucretius in Latin as well as translations in English and French is illustrative.

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Yes - and that reminds me too that we should compare this with the story of Torquatus' ancestor, who had his son executed for disobeying orders in a war, and how that compares / differs from the Iphanessa story

On a probably unrelated note, I turned up something the other day in my reading. It was Frontinus' Aqueducts of Rome (Frontinus being a military and civil engineer who was put in charge of the system), and he made mention of the Torquatian Gardens, or maybe Gardens of Torquatus. No other extant Latin text mentions them. It was a large family in Rome though, there's probably no connection. But it did strike me as a feature of interest.

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The Iphigenia story is very significant for how repulsive it shows religion to be. For us the Abraham / Isaac story us more well known. Are there others?

Well, there's a rather important one for Christians!